Sanming is a typical mountain city. The entire city is located between the Wuyi Mountains and the Daiyun Mountains. Here, there are towering peaks, undulating hills, dense streams, and river valleys and basins scattered among them, giving birth to a rich variety of plants, among which wild vegetables are closely related to local life. We don’t often report on Sanming, but after a “wild vegetable feast”, we suddenly discovered the unique “flavor of the world” in this mountain city in central Fujian...

?Sanming Wild Vegetable Flavor Guide?

Types: There are more than 500 kinds of wild vegetables in Sanming, and 150 kinds of wild vegetables are currently being promoted and planted. On this basis, local wild vegetable restaurants can be guaranteed to have no less than 5 kinds of wild vegetables every day.

Popular local wild vegetables: shepherd's purse, lettuce, cress, duck celery, white bract artemisia, malantou, fern, broad-leaf leek, small root garlic, Houttuynia cordata, toona sinensis, aralia buds, tree ginseng wait.

Methods of cooking wild vegetables: The method of cooking wild vegetables is similar to that of home-cooked vegetables, but in order to detoxify or have a better taste, there will be an additional step of processing, such as blanching, soaking, salting, and drying. Stir and wait.

Wild vegetables are wild edible plants. Strictly speaking, they are edible plants that rely on nature rather than artificial ones for their origin and breeding. Wild vegetables are rich in flavor and have a strong herbal aroma. There are not many varieties of wild vegetables that are truly recognized by Sanming locals and integrated into their lives, but they are enough to fill the days of living close to the mountains with a vivid mountain atmosphere.

Common wild vegetables in Sanming include mugwort, wormwood, shepherd's purse, bitter greens, bracken, etc. The way local people enjoy wild vegetables is no different from other mountainous areas in China. Take the Datian County we visited as an example. It is just after the Qingming Festival, everything is new, wild vegetables are fresh and tender, and wild vegetables can be seen on the dining table almost every time. Pick the fresh sprouts of bitter vegetables, blanch them first to remove the astringency, and put them into the soup together with the small intestines. The taste is refreshing and refreshing. This is the bitter vegetable small intestine soup that can be seen everywhere in snack bars. It is often paired with the local snack nine-layer cake. . Bracken is the star of the local people's spring dining table. During the day, you go out to pick a handful of fresh bracken, and you can stir-fry it with red glutinous rice that night to enjoy the freshness of the mountains.

Qingming Cake was only made at this time. It is made from the juice of sage grass, mixed with glutinous rice flour, and wrapped with local dried bamboo shoots or bean paste filling. When you bite it, you will also get a mouthful of green grass aroma. Shepherd's purse and pork dumplings are also popular in some places. When local friends mentioned it, they couldn't help but swallow their saliva - this is a unique delicacy in spring.

Centella asiatica and mugwort

Most of the rural houses in Sanming are backed by mountains and facing fields. Yiluoluo is relatively independent and wrapped in the embrace of the mountains. Such a good ecology makes it possible for all kinds of wild vegetables to grow. hotbed. Villagers do not need to go far. They can pick common wild vegetables anywhere in front of their houses, along the river, or in the fields. In addition to eating, some herbs are "natural medicine" for them.

For example, mugwort can treat colds and colds, plantain is a diuretic, Houttuynia cordata can relieve internal heat, wormwood can reduce blood pressure, purslane can reduce blood sugar, etc. These are all "rural remedies" passed down from generation to generation. The local people have lived in the mountains for generations and are close to nature. Based on their experience, they eat wild vegetables or medicinal herbs. However, if you ask more deeply, few people can tell the reason.

A way to rectify the name of wild vegetables

Wu Songjian is a researcher and popularizer of local wild vegetable knowledge in Sanming. In his words, the local people’s understanding of wild vegetables has only “uncovered the tip of the iceberg". Many wild vegetables were regarded as mountain weeds before they were known. Wu Songjian is currently compiling a book on the list of Sanming wild vegetables, their medicinal value and how to eat them.

Because of his work on the TV station, he met Song Weiwen, a famous local herbal expert, many years ago. Since then, he has followed Song Weiwen to do field surveys in various places in Sanming to identify local herbs. At the same time, he has also supplemented the information through extensive reading of literature and historical materials. expertise. Today, he is a recognized teacher in the field of wild vegetables in Sanming.

Since coming into contact with wild vegetables, Wu Songjian’s passion for outdoor travel has become more interesting. He began to visit places in advance to learn which places have abundant wild vegetable resources, and took his friends there to identify wild vegetables. Knowing more about wild vegetables, everyone began to explore how to eat wild vegetables. It happened that camping in the wild also required making fires for cooking, so wild vegetables became the main ingredient.

But eating wild vegetables is not a light thing and requires a long and scientific understanding process. Getting to know wild vegetables doesn't mean just rolling around in the field. It's extremely risky to try the herbs yourself. The seedlings of many plants are very similar in shape, and it is easy to misidentify them if they are not carefully distinguished. For example, white clover looks very similar to the poisonous buttercup. Although some plants are not poisonous, their tastes are very different, such as Agogo thistle and Hyssop.

Hyssop

In the process of getting to know wild vegetables, Wu Songjian is a professional leader. He uses the nature of the mountains as his classroom and shares herbal knowledge with everyone in a rigorous and detailed manner. I often warn everyone not to take risks without accumulating certain professional knowledge. In addition, when you first taste wild vegetables, you should also eat them in moderation. “Usually, you should eat less when you eat it for the first time, and pay attention to collecting specimens. You can eat a little more the second time, and then eat it with confidence after you are sure it is safe to eat.

< p> In addition, the cooking method is also very important, firstly, to remove the toxic substances contained in wild vegetables, and secondly, to bring out the deliciousness through cooking,” Wu Songjian said.

Wild vegetables are edible plants that have not been domesticated by humans. The wild and wild energy they exude attracts these nature-loving people. They call themselves "mountain people" and go deep into the mountains to learn about herbs and eat wild vegetables. Not only the way they get along with nature, but also the process by which they outline and materialize the "mountain" to the outside world - without conscious exploration, many people would not know what is hidden in the mountains behind them, even if they have lived here for generations. What a treasure.

Over time, the original outdoor club has turned into a "wild vegetable knowledge and cultural exchange group". Among the people who gather to play outdoors, there are many chefs, restaurant owners, and food lovers who love to study wild vegetables. Food, cooking methods, and even setting up a boiler and lighting a fire between heaven and earth to hold a "Wild Vegetable Cooking Competition".

Since 2009, the “Wild Vegetable Cooking Competition” has been held almost every year and has long become a special local event in Sanming. Most of the participants are outdoor teams who love wild vegetables. They are divided into different outdoor clubs. Every year, they select a location rich in wild vegetable resources as the competition venue. They pick and produce it on the spot, and invite Chinese medicine experts, scholars, and gourmets to comment on the event. Over the past ten years, the cooking competition has integrated local grassroots and medicinal food culture into a larger-scale local cultural event, which has a certain influence across the country. A group of outdoor enthusiasts have successfully introduced many outsiders to Sanming through "wild vegetables". Many people got to know the rich variety of wild vegetables during the event, and also got to know the cradle of these herbs - the natural environment of Sanming.

?Enjoying wild vegetables, Shan people have their own tricks

Under the influence of Wu Songjian, many people started a wild vegetable business, Shan Bao and his wife Huang Xiaohua were one of them. They originally ran a farm restaurant in Datian. Because they followed Wu Songjian outdoors all year round to identify wild vegetables and study their cooking methods, the couple accumulated a lot of knowledge about wild vegetables.

"Every time I go back outdoors, the most exciting thing is to get to know different wild vegetables. We will pick some and cook them in different cooking methods for our friends. We will judge and communicate together, and sometimes make The dishes are particularly amazing, so we have added them to the menu of the store. The more we try them, the more the dishes are enriched, and the original farmhouse restaurant has turned into a wild vegetable restaurant without realizing it,” Huang Xiaohua said. At present, they have developed it. There are no less than a hundred wild vegetable dishes, and several of them have won crowns in competitions. In recent years, many customers from other places have come to try their new food.

We made an appointment with Shan Bao to go to the countryside to pick wild vegetables, and then go to his restaurant to taste wild vegetable dishes. Shan Bao made an appointment with his friend Chen Hong, who was also an expert on wild vegetables, and drove in the direction of Dashi Village. He originally thought that this journey in search of wild vegetables would take him to the wilderness, but unexpectedly the car stopped at a farm in the countryside.

Although wild vegetables are wild, they are not solitary. You can find many wild vegetables in front of the mountains, behind the houses, and on the banks of the fields and rivers. Shan Bao and his friends visited this area in advance. You can see a variety of wild vegetables in this area at once. Malantou is spread out all over the field ridges. Nightshades grow vigorously under the grape trellis. A few scattered red plants can be seen on the edge. Flower clusters of motherwort, in addition to milkvetch, golden cherry, and even the young leaves of mulberry trees. These plants are not uncommon, but few people know that they are edible wild vegetables. For example, nightshade, Shanbao told us, is already a home-cooked dish for Guangxi people, but it is still rarely known in Sanming.

When we were picking nightshades, the owner of the farm came over and asked about the cooking method of nightshades. The original weeds suddenly turned into nutritious wild vegetables under the guidance of an expert. The owner of the farm looked like he was picking up nightshades. His face beamed with joy as if he had found a treasure. After a while, five or six kinds of fresh and tender wild vegetables were packed into the bags, including Malanthus, nightshade, wild chrysanthemum, hyssop, and young mulberry leaves. Shan Bao has already planned the meal list for the evening.

Figures 1 to 4 show native ginseng, hyssop, nightshade, and wild chrysanthemum respectively.

Shanbao’s cooking methods for wild vegetables are quite pioneering. This has something to do with the local food culture of Sanming - this is a new city established after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Although it is located in a mountainous area in central Fujian, it has a large number of immigrants mixed in, and there is no fixed food taste. Wild vegetables are gifts from the mountains, and "mountain people" love to play with them. In their hands, each wild vegetable is given ingenuity and turned into creative dishes.

I have seen many people pick young mulberry leaves and boil them in water as herbal tea in summer. This is the first time I know that mulberry leaves are also a dish. Shanbao cooks them by frying them in batter, and it is unexpectedly fragrant and delicious. .

The Japanese knotweed seen in the field looks like a small tree. The bark of the tree stem is peeled off and turned into a spicy and sour crispy bamboo shoot under Shan Bao's cooking.

For example, Shanbao and his wife’s favorite way to cook young mulberry leaves is to deep-fry them, which is called “tempura” in a more Western style. This method completely retains the shape of the mulberry leaves, making them The whole piece is as bright as emerald and has a wonderful taste. It not only retains the fragrance of the mulberry leaves, but also makes the crude fiber of the mulberry leaves crispy through frying. Fresh hyssop and nightshade are used to make the soup, and the simplest way to eat them highlights the rare freshness and sweetness of spring buds.

The wild chrysanthemum I picked seemed a bit old, so I added preserved eggs and stewed it until it was soft and soft. It melted in your mouth, and the rich aroma made people linger for a while. Shanbao told us that what people like most about wild vegetables is the overbearing original aroma of herbs that is completely out of nature. No matter how they are cooked, the pursuit is to "force" them out of their original flavor and at the same time show their deliciousness. .

As wild vegetable lovers, both leaders like Wu Songjian and practitioners like Shan Bao are determined to promote Sanming wild vegetable culture. Shanbao Restaurant is running a good business, but apart from wild vegetable lovers, there are also some curious foodies who come here for food. Not many locals come. Shan Bao skillfully handed over the task of picking wild vegetables to local farmers and taught them the skills to identify wild vegetables and some cooking methods. In addition to picking wild vegetables and supplying them to restaurants, the farmers also integrated them into their daily lives over time.

Under the leadership of Wu Songjian, some local organic ecological farms are working with the Academy of Agricultural Sciences to cultivate wild vegetable seedlings. They all use "wild vegetables" as a guide to understand the mountains step by step, and try to nourish the lives of the locals with a better "taste of the mountains".

Written by Zhang Xiaofei

Photographed by Wu Yuchen